Card-index file.



.0. W. HELBIGL. -CARDV INDEX PILE. APPLmATxo'H FILED AUG. m. 1905.

manned 0m27.190s.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 1.

O. W. HELBIG. GARD INDEX PILE.

APPLIOATION 111mm tua. 21, 1905.

Patemtsd 061;. 53'?, E963 "unifis srarns sadism? crearon.

,OTTO w. HELBIG, Or CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, AssicNon To OTTO w. HELBIG COMPANY, or

crucaco, ILLINois, A CORPORATION or ILLINOIS.

CARDJNDEX FILE.

Na 90u41.

To all 'whom it may cof/teem; A fr Be it known that I, OTTO W. HELBIG, a citizen of the United States, residing at-Chi cago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Card-Index Files, of which the following is a s eciiication.

My invention re ates to mechanism for accurately accounting for large quantities of goods which will be referred to under the term of packagea which are sent out by a dealer, and are to be returned when the contents are removed. Under this class may be mentioned freight cars of a railroad, and the casks and cases of bottles used in breweries, though I do notvlimit myself to the use of the device with any particular sort of packages.- The importance of the device will be understood when it is stated that in some large institutions there are many thousands of. returnable packagessent out every month, and if they are not accurately accounted for, heavy financial .loss must result.

' rIfhe object of my invention is to provide a. device for this purpose by means of which the attention of the accountant having' charge of the accounts relating to the packages is automatically lcalled tol any packages which have been out an undue length of time, so that he Will, if he lives up to his duty, immediately institute an investigation as to why these packages have not been returned, and which will, 'at the same time, enable a shipping clerk whoreceives a packe e back with only a number upon it, to readi y determine to whom' it is to be credited. a My invention consists in a neat and convenient form of mechanism capabxe lof accomplishing'the above objects, whie i can be easily and cheaply made and installed, which can be easily operated, and is not readily liable to get out of order.

It further consists in details of construc\ tion which will be hereafter more fully described and claimed as the specification proceeds. 4

Referring to the drawings, Figure 1 i's an isometric perspective View oi one drawer of the iling cabinet having a portion of the mechanism of my invention applied thereto;

` Fig. 2 is a similar view of another drawer having the 'remainder of the mechanismof my'invention applied thereto.

. When theA device is used by a small concern, lthe mechanism contained in these two Specification of Letters Patent.

Application tiled August 21, l1905. Serial No. 276,080.'

- twelve months of. tlieyear.

resented oct. 27', 1908.

igures may be inounted in one long drawer oi' a cabinet, and, when the device is used by a large concern having many thousands or hundreds of thousands of packages to be accounted for, the arts of the device may be inclosed in many raWers of a cabinet, orin the drawers of several cabinets, or any othersuitable receptacle.

The returnable packages to be accounted for, whether freight cars or liquor cases, or

other objects, owned by the business house which is to use the device, should be consecus eciied number, u award, and the number should be irmly an plainly affixed' to each package. which are to be accounted for thusnum- "tively numbered from one, or any desired Having thev returnable 'packages be`red, I divide the year `into a number ci convenient intervals of time suitable for ac counting purposes, usually one month." Assuming that this division is made, i provide twelve sets of tabbed record cards k, suchas i a're shown in Fig. 1, which are numbered consecutively from the lowest to the highest numbers of the returnable packages which are to beaccounte'd for.

In the drawings, I' have shown the cards for fifty packages,and in Fi 1, these are seen, duplicated five times; t ose in section is. being numbered from 1 t0 50, and those in section B from 1 to 50, and those in section' C from 1 .to 50, and so on. Were there' 100,000 packages to be accounted for, there would be 100,000 cards consecutively numbered in section A, and the same number in each of the other sections B, C, D, E, and so on, throughout the sections representing the If the accountant having chargeof the Workl should determine that `periods of two months were sufficient for accounting' would only besix sections o ofcards, while if the accountant should determine upon weekly'accountine periodsJ there would be fifty-two sets of uplicated sections of consecutively numbered cards. The cards, or atleast the visible portions of them, of each section 'representing the selected .accounting period, Whether it Vbe a week, a month, or two months, are of one color, and the "cards for each accounting period are of a color distinctly different from' purposes, there duplicated sets the colors of all of the cards representing the .other accounting periods of the year.V For convenience, I arrange the tabs upon cony ways have the numeral 1 at the left-hand edge, so that 1, 11, 21, 31, 41, ete., are always in one column lengthwise of the drawer of the cabinet, while 5, 15, 25, 35, 45, etc., are always in one other column running len thwise of the cabinet, as shown in Fig. 1. If t e accountant for some reason should desire to use only 10, 12, and so on, With only five tabs instead of ten, without r eparting from my invention. In this case the numeral 2 would be at the left-hand column. -I also provide in connection with the mechanism heretofore described, a series of places, spaces, or receptacles, to each one of which the name of a customer or other person receiving the package ma be ap plied, and in which cards taken from t 1e device shown in Fi 1 may be placed in such a position that t 1e numbered tabs upon the cards may be readily examined. i

In the particular mechanism illustrated in Fig. 2, I do this by providing a plurality of `tabbed cards m, n, o, p, and q, made movable backward and forward in the box or drawer, but these may be madein ri id position with the cabinet could be made spaces between them; 1n eit er construction it being possible to insert tabbed cards cjbe-V tween these name-cards, as shown. The accountant having the business in charge, places the -name of one customer on each of the name-tab cards m, n, o. p, etc., as shown: For purposes of illustration, the name H. George is applied to the card m, E. Brown to the card n, S. Black to the card o, F. Haines to the card p, and Charles Knox to the card g. Assuming now that the device has been inA use for three months, and we are at present doing business in the month in which the cards bearing the color of `section C are used. When, now, during this month, indicated by color C cards, a package which is to be accounted for is sent out, to a customer, as, for instance, ber 17, on the sale being reported the accountant takes a card bearing number 17v from color C section, and places itin the receptacle shown in Fig. 2, bearing the name of the customer to whom this package No. 17 has been delivered. In Fig. 2, Mr. S. Black has, during the month indicated by colorC, ,f

packages of goods, one numnumber 44, and these packcharged to him placing the purchased two ber 17 and one ages have been b cards bearing these respective iiiimbers and the color C indicating the month in which ,the delivery was made, in the receptacle or space l bearing the name of Mr. Black. Thisdescription shows the principle. On this principle, referring to Fig. 2, it will be understood that Mr. H. George has;` purchased,

even numbers, as 2, 4, 6, 8,

runnin -across the drawer,

a package bearing the numduring the month indicated b numbered package bearing th and that four months later, in the month inthe color A, a e number 15, l

dicated by the color E, he purchased a packily understood by the following example.

Suppose, first, that' we are doing business in the month indicated by the color D. The

accountant having charge of the work, Arun-- ning over the drawer or drawers, or other de'- vices containing the receptacles bearing the customers names, on .going to the drawer shown in Fig. 2, notices a card 15 of the color indicated the letter A. in the receptacle bearing the name of H. George. He at once knows that belonging to the main house for over four months, and that it is probably empty and should be returned. tutes an inquiry as to not been returned, probably is returned He 4thereupon instiwhy this package has in a short time. If only one set of cards having one color were used for the entire set of numbered packages put out by the original house,he would have to look down at notations upon the tab-l cards to see when the package of that number was delivered and as such notations would be normally coveredtby the'card in front he would have nothing to call his attention to the fact that package .had been out an undue. time, Whereas, With this sytem the minute he sees a card bearing the color which he knows is in a delinquent month or other period of time, his attention is at on@` called to it, to institute the search inst described. The other useof the device is this: ln large houses having a large number of numbered packages to bc accounted for, a cust-oirer frequently returns a nurn-4 bered package and forgets to send in a mem orandum that it is from him. Suppose, now, the shipping clerk receives a package numbeifed 13, and that there are 100,000 returnable packages belongingv to the house; how is he to ascertain .to whom this package should be credited? In the use of this device, the matter is refel'red`to the accountant who takes the portion of the mechanism illustrated in drawer 1, and simply looks down column 3 from the left at the cards of each color until he finds a c ard 13 missin ,Y 'and as only one card can be missing of this I number, it must have aspecified color, which, 4on examining the device in Fig. 1, we find is a card indicated bylcolor B. He now refers to the portion of the device indicated in Fig. 2 and runs down the third column, without paying special attention to the figures, for cards bearing color B; and, if he finds more th an o ne, continues the search until he finds card'13 of color B, which he finds in the ac count of Mr. E. Brown. He immediately Mr. George has had a package 15 withl the result that it l l l gives Mr. l3i'ow`n credit ou account of puel'.- ieil. removes card 13 color B from the portion ofthe device shown in Fig, 2, and places it iii its proper place iii the drawcr iii the denumbered consecutively, to correspond with vice zii Fig. l, when the card is ready to he. i

naine may be'applied and in which one of used when, next year, the period of time iiidiente-d b i color l comes around. A

li 'rill readily be secu by the foregoing description -thnt :in accountant' who has charge of 'the runners containing the portion of the device shown iii Fie'. 2 constantly has his :ii-

teiitiiiii called to any returnable packages turned :is proiiipth- :is they should be, and that .i'heii 'a iiiiiiilicred pudorge is returned ivliich are out and which have notbeen iethe successive numbers of the packages-to be accounted for;V and a plurality of places, spaces or receptacles convenient to the main grou ps of cards to each of which a custoniers saidniiinbered cards coricspoi'idiug with the number of the package delivered to said eus'- toiiier taken t'roin the set of cards of the color indicating the period of time in which delivery of said package is made to said customer may be laced.

2. A i evice for use by a dealer iii account- 5 ing for numerous consecutively numbered revrithoiit any other description than the iiiinibei, it is very easy to locate it without reixdin;T :i xgreat quantity ot' iiiifiibers and without 1 i-xiiiiiiniiifri the nuittcr on the ards lieloii the tV tubs. to` determine to whom this package is to he credited.

As every card appearing iii'Fig. 2 is sceii to be. missing from the. portion of the device I packages seiitout in month A by simply examining the cards ot month A find t i at he tiirnable packages conipiisiiiif: a set of rec ord cards for each olf' several s eciticd periods of time; the cards in each set icing the saine color and of a different color from the cards of all the other sets and having exposed tabs numbered consecutively to correspond with `the successivo numbers of the packages to be accounted for, the tabs on each ten or less successive cards being arranged ste by step across the width of the cards with t ie. lowest unit of the consecutive nunibersiof the tabs can locate to whom the packages represented by the missing cards have been sentby the.i

method described in the last' paragraph.

The ruled spaces on the bodies of the tahcards At, in Fig. l. may be used to make :my

Vdesirable notes about'the vnumbered package represented by the card. They do not. however, form a part of this invention.

Havingr thus described my invention, what l claimas `new and desire to secure by Letters Patent' is i. A device for use by,a dealer in accounting for numerous consecutively numbered returnable packages'comprising a set of record cards for each of several specified periods of vtiin 5 the cardsfor each set beingr the same c olor and of 'a diderent'color from the cards A Aof all the other sets and having exposed tabs l at the left and the-saine. unit always in the same position on all the cards bearing that unit as described; and aplui'ality of places, spaces or receptacles convenient to the main groups of cards, to each of which-a custoniers naine may be applied and' in which one of said numbered cards ciorresponding With the number of the. package delivered to said customer taken from the set of cards of the color indicating the period of time in which delivery oi' said package is made to said customer, may be placed in such a position that the numbered tabs on the cards of successive clustoniers areexposed to View.

In Witness whereof, I have hereunto subscribed my name. in the presence 'of-two Wit- I'ICSSQS.

OTTO W. HELBIG.

Witnesses:

WILLIAM E. BRADWAY, DWIGHT B. CHEpvEIi. 

